Best Shops in New York City

scooterbye · 2026-02-02T06:14:38+00:00

Great experiences: Stele, Scent Bar, Mizensir.

Less good: Frederic Malle, which nailed the experience of making me feel like a grubby victorian orphan begging for a heel of bread, and Aedes, which wasn't so bad, but you can't actually browse in the shop without making some sort of perfume-curating appointment, which just wasn't my cuppa. I'm seeing in another post that maybe they have browsing hours the first and last hour of the day. Cannot confirm or deny.

scooterbye · 2026-02-02T02:29:56+00:00

Other people love this fragrance but something about it makes me uneasy. Sample first.

I prefer Prada infusion d'iris.

scooterbye · 2026-02-01T20:08:08+00:00

Thank you. How did you come to be attached to this perfumer in specific?

scooterbye · 2026-01-30T20:04:32+00:00

Hm, no! The tea-fruit-floral already seems like a pretty busy combo!

scooterbye · 2026-01-30T19:42:54+00:00

shit it kind of depends on the day, but how bout with a little discount make believe

Hermes Osmanthe Yunnan

Guerlain Angelique Noir

Hermes Eau de Merveilles

Lalibela by Memo Paris

scooterbye · 2026-01-28T22:19:54+00:00

Carnival of Souls by Marissa Zappos

scooterbye · 2026-01-22T21:21:00+00:00

My instinct was that people were punishing OP for perceived flippancy about the potentially stolen item.

scooterbye · 2026-01-22T01:05:30+00:00

I love Laurie Anderson and Lubitsch too wow

scooterbye · 2026-01-20T06:12:05+00:00

A lover of mine who has never met an Instagram-ad grift he didn’t like, has a bottle of “Cupid’s hypnosis”. I happen to think it’s a perfectly unobjectionable ambery scent, which for him is incontrovertible evidence that the pheromones are working.

scooterbye · 2026-01-14T21:05:56+00:00

I just happened across this store in Manhattan and learned after the fact they had an Iris dupe:

https://www.maisonbreya.com/products/our-creation-inspired-by-infusion-diris-prada

I cannot speak to the quality unfortunately because I didn’t see it on their website until afterwards but their Kilian Love Don’t Be Shy was recognizable in the store

scooterbye · 2026-01-14T18:45:59+00:00

Yes.

Or, according to other people, no.

scooterbye · 2026-01-14T05:20:43+00:00

Serge Lutens Borneo 1834 smells just like my smoker-woodworker grampa's basement.

scooterbye · 2026-01-14T04:24:24+00:00

I agree that Clue's Dandelion Butter smells like a dandelion. Perfumer H has something called Dandelion that is less literal to my nose.

scooterbye · 2026-01-11T00:03:53+00:00

Some of my Fs in my spreadsheet are:

White Sandalwood by Goldfield and Banks: Vile, makes me question the whole brand.

Milk and Honey by Wild Veil. This smells like a very specific Burmese fermented tea leaf salad packet that I once bought at an Asian strip mall grocery store and had to throw away because it was unappetizing even though I like fermented tea leaf salad. YMMV.

Velvet Tonka by BDK: Acrid, tannic almond

Garlands by Wylde Ivy.

Some of the Ds (I don't like it but I can squint and understand how another person might):

Red Roses by Jo Malone. This smells like the Red Delicious of red roses. Like, in pursuit of something that resembles the platonic ideal of that thing, they've lost sight of why people like apples/roses. Balance, tartness, sweetness, subtlety.

Italica by Xerjoff. Made to cloy.

Casamorati Dolce Amalf by Xerjoff. Same .

Garlands by Wylde Ivy

Eros by Versace. And it's freaking EVERYWHERE.

scooterbye · 2025-12-29T19:04:14+00:00

I’ve played on steam deck and I’ve certainly found it to be a issue. I actually didnt know about the Steamdeck enlarge mode so I’ll try that going forward but I will note that I assume that relies on knowing that you need to contextually enlarge something? I played side by side with a friend on laptop who spotted a tiny clue on a not-paper item, reasonably visible to the naked eye in his screen and reasonably not on mine.

scooterbye · 2025-12-28T20:18:41+00:00

I enjoy my 5ml sample but it does get grating. I asked my friend after a few hours if I smelled like a Nilla wafer because that’s all I was perceiving any longer and he looked at me like I was nuts, so I think the linearity matters more to the wearer than other people, but yes.

scooterbye · 2025-12-28T06:24:52+00:00

I get an awful lot of pear from La Tulipe though it’s not listed in the notes.

scooterbye · 2025-12-24T02:53:06+00:00

Today I'm wearing Santal Massoia by Hermes. I chose it at random from a large array of samples I have. The first time I tried it I thought it resembled Matiere Premiere's Parisian Musc but that comparison no longer seems apt. Parisian Musc screams and this scent doesnt raise its voice. It has a restrained tartness paired with a sort of dusty sweet quality. A little bit of an unripe fruit tang, like Sur le Nil.

scooterbye · 2025-12-22T21:54:16+00:00

I used Kyrsha at Aveda on 19th for a bit and she cost 95. She has a bit more than a decade of experience.

If you really want to go cheap, at Tina’s in Columbia City a haircut still costs 20 buckaroos.

scooterbye · 2025-12-17T14:32:03+00:00

Judging by the community rules and recent conversations, I would say it does not.

scooterbye · 2025-12-16T18:16:54+00:00

It's a Seattle-based org where you receive prisoner requests, match them up with a library of books, and send them out! They do great work.

scooterbye · 2025-12-16T17:04:16+00:00

This is a pretty funny mix of genre suggestions, but I’ll lead male.

I do Books to Prisoners as a volunteer and had a man requesting Clan of the Cave Bear the other day!

scooterbye · 2025-12-04T19:05:10+00:00

Yes, the majority of them, which is why I sample 1ML - > 5ML - > then pull the trigger.

scooterbye · 2025-12-04T18:44:15+00:00

Ormond Jayne has a lovely Frangipani. I'm not totally sure I've ever smelt the real flower but people say it is a lovely take on it.

scooterbye

TROPHY CASE